November 2022 Grocery Challenge

Gettingmyshiztogether

Hello, another update here. I ve bought two TGTG boxes to be collected this evening. One from m and Sons cafe and one from m and sons groceries. Collection at the same time, so it made sense to do. £6.09 to add to my November total.

Budget
To date £394.31/ £460
= 65.69 left to spend.

I'll report back later on what I get given. Have a good day everyone 😊

ps86edi

The budget is well and truly blown through. Even though most of the purchases yesterday would be used next month, I prefer to count them in the month it was spent. But that is the climax at the beginning.
On Saturday, we visited the nearby Christmas craft market and walked into Waitrose to get the shiny Christmas things and general produce we buy from them. Then we stepped into M&S and bagged up milk (which unfortunately has caught up to the Aldi/LIDL prices), free bread (came in my sparks rewards), bananas, and onions. Out of the £16.30 we spent, £6.30 was spent on Christmas things, which I am excluding from our regular budget.
Had we never been in close proximity to a LIDL, we wouldn't have spent more and still would have been within the budget.
However, we were, and we spent £18.32 on various things, of which I could honestly only put about 3.81 in the bulk category, but I am inclined not to.

So the total expenditure for the month of November is - £115.8/£100

Soontobeoap

@ps86edi you have done way better than I did. Sounds to me like neither of us took account of the fact that we would be buying stuff for December in November. I like to keep account of what I have bought in each month rather than carry it over too.

LadyWithAPlan

Grocery £147/£145  Bulk £36/£55 - the end of the month

 I had spent my planned £145 for  Nov  (and now spent £2 more on GF wraps) so slightly over - I have bought 2 x FR Cornfed chickens to roast in that time so thats £21 there. I used to always buy whole chickens and I can use them to make lots of meals and soup as well - however with the COL I have been instead buying les healthy cuts of meat including sausages. So I am going to maintain the better food choices.

Bulk spending -  I have just bought £26 worth of my favourite coffee Crema E Gusto (lavazza)  it works out as £2.60 / 250g vs when I buy same size in the store ranging from £3.80- £4.50 - I am just using my last bulk buy of Lavazza coffee beans.
That was the first time I had bulked bought coffee beans and it saved me running to the store to stock up so more spending plus it worked out cheaper.
I also bought some olive oil and other bulk stores eg mackerel in oil etc as I like as a snack

I did buy some sweets and a few crisps but that comes from my Treats Pot 

Dec budget - there will be some entertaining but I will be away for Xmas at family so less money needed. I am staying at £145 for another month (I have been coming down by £5 /month over the last few grocery challenges and as I live in Central London and I am gluten free (not by choice) then a lot of Olio and TGTG does not work for me.

I also like the £30 bulk money - that works for me
so Dec £145 food + £30 bulk

Doom_and_Gloom

£21.01 spent between A&C and Mr S since last post.

£222.26/£240.
£17.74 left.

MissRikkiC

We managed our November spending all of our £350 budget but the last week with £15 was a real struggle to stay within budget and eat relatively healthily. I currently require a higher than normal protein amount due to strength training (and breast feeding) but we managed it just about. 

@LadyWithAPlan i too have been eating less healthy food on account of YS or cheaper food items and whilst it’s not make or break, I have to find a balance. 

Another month within budget and notably only used OLIO once this month. I shall be keeping an eye out now and storing stuff away for the winter. 

Well done to those who are in budget, but also those who aren’t; for being here in the first place

bupster

Well, I dithered over what to do with the final £21 in the budget. Should I roll it over? Or spend it on rubbish, because I can? In the end I thought well, I've budgeted for £200 this month and I might as well give myself a bit of a reward AND see if I can tide myself over to delay my first December shop - so I went to Sainsbury's and spent *precisely* £20.94 - which brings me to a total of £199.88 for November. 

So no more cash left in the kitty, but for that money I got 8 pints of milk, four loaves of bread, a dozen eggs, some celery and onions, and a few other bits that mean I can put off doing my first big supermarket order until well into December (and I'll only have to go to the Co-op for more eggs and honey in the meantime - they do local honey and local eggs here so I prefer to get them there even though it's a bit more expensive). Then I topped up with a 75p Terry's chocolate orange and a few other indulgences to celebrate! 

Gettingmyshiztogether

Update on the TGTG boxes.

Box one contained;
X2 1kg worth of salad potatoes
X4 loaves of Bread (x2 800g, x2 400g)
X1 Lettuce (that was starting to rot underneath so I had to throw it away)
X1 small piece of double Gloucester cheese
X1 bunch of spring onions
X1 huge (16 serving) chocolate birthday cake

The second TGTG box was cancelled, but I only discovered this when I went to collect. The app didn't tell me, which would have been annoying if I had only gone to collect that one, but as I was there anyway it was a bonus box so not a huge issue. So I have been refunded so my total has gone down again!

Current spend sits at...

£391.32/ £460

The loaves have gone into the freezer. The cake was cut into 12 slices, some was eaten last night, most went into the freezer. 

I am considering making a cheesey/ spring oniony type daphonoise potatoes with the rest of the box. My girls would probably eat that for a meal with some sausages. 

Hope everyone is well! Almost the end of the month!

SausageDogSandwich

Hi everyone, been very hectic here with Xmas spends and vet bills  also had a McDonald’s Sunday night which was a fortune for 6 of us, luckily mostly planned but it still isn’t nice letting all that money go   

Grocery wise I’ve spent £4.50 on chicken for the dog at coop then £29.05 husband spent in L1dl. I haven’t had chance to get much done other than caring for the dogs, havent had anything from olio either so we don’t have much left for meals but should be able to get through until Friday with just a bottle of milk to buy. And I’ll make it up as I go along, I’ve put a stew in the slow cooker this morning so only three more meals to find. 

£151.50/150 spent. Ooops!!

EssexHebridean

I suspect we are blown. A Mozzas shop yesterday as we returned from our weekend trip to Birmingham - and they had the big jars of MrEH's preferred coffee for £5 a jar - so two of those purchased, plus a few other "non standard" bits means a spend there of £45.70 and our total for the month now standing at £138.24/£200 - which doesn't sound too dreadful until you remember that we still have two weekly shops and a veg box to get out of that! Now I *might* get the remaining two weekly shops out of £45.odd, but then again I'm more likely not to, I suspect! Bargain of the day yesterday was butter for £1.89 - I only bought one as the fridge is already rammed with it, but will be keeping an eye to see if Mozzas maintain that price and continue to stock it as it was their Savers brand. 

On positives, the Food Show spending included lots of odds and ends for Christmas, a vast quantity of different tasty cheeses (As always the offers were mixed - but 6 wedges of cheese from the Clawson Stilton people for £10 was a highlight) Some nice chinese sauces (4 bottles, 4 jars) for a total of £7, a full-re-stock of my peanut butter of choice (4 x 1kg tins at £5 a tin) which should do me until well past this point next year, 2 boxes of Jazz apples at £1 a box (9 apples). A fairly high spend, but from a specific budget so not relevant to the GC. Theoretically I should probably include the apples here, but I'm not going to!